English Bulldog Scammers
and puppy brokers
and puppy brokers
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English Bulldog Puppies for sale
Home of your new best friend
Home of your new best friend
ATTENTION: A new trend is puppies sold by puppy brokers.
They are brought here from Europe and are often raised in
overseas puppy mills were parents and puppies live in deplorable
conditions. These brokers pick up these puppies some as low as
$50.00. They sell the puppies out of their homes and tell you that
they are selling them for family or friends. Look for signs that the
female has recently had puppies and ask a lot of questions.
These brokers are selling out of Richmond Hill, Toronto, Barrie,
Whitby, Ajax etc...so buyer beware!!!!
They are brought here from Europe and are often raised in
overseas puppy mills were parents and puppies live in deplorable
conditions. These brokers pick up these puppies some as low as
$50.00. They sell the puppies out of their homes and tell you that
they are selling them for family or friends. Look for signs that the
female has recently had puppies and ask a lot of questions.
These brokers are selling out of Richmond Hill, Toronto, Barrie,
Whitby, Ajax etc...so buyer beware!!!!
Step by Step Guide to the Puppy Import Trade
by frogdogz on February 25, 2010 in Daily Life, French Bulldog Stuff
with 5 Comments Tweet
I’ve written at length before about what a “Puppy Broker” is - think of
them as ‘electronic pet stores’, who obtain puppies from a breeder,
and then re sell them for a profit. Unlike pet stores, who at least admit
to not having bred the puppies they sell, many brokers will bend over
backwards to obscure the fact that they aren’t the actual breeders of
the puppies.
Brokers who do admit that their dogs are European imports like to
use a lot of buzz terms about just why they’re importing puppies for re
sale. They’ll talk about “superior health”, and “champion lines”, and
they like to toss around references to a better policed European
breeding system. What they never actually spell out for you is the
actual chain of events – how a puppy gets from a breeder in Europe
to a puppy broker in Toronto, or some other North American city.
This article caught my eye, because it fills in some of the blanks for
us:
From the Austrian Independent -
Styrian police discovered 47 puppies stashed in a Slovakian van
during a routine motorway traffic check on the A2 yesterday (Weds).
Cops said the animals were transported in carton boxes and on the
car’s floor.
The 31-year-old driver is facing animal cruelty charges. He
admitted he had been driving nonstop for hours and was on his way
to Spain.
A vet said the man had five King Charles Spaniels, one Jack
Russell Terrier, eight miniature pinscher, four Pomeranians, one
French Bulldog, four Chihuahuas, three wire-haired dachshunds, 20
Maltese and one Labrador. He said the youngest dogs were just five
weeks old.
The emphasis in bold is mine, because it plays such an important
part in explaining just why so many of the Eastern European import
dogs have temperament problems.
In the immortal words of a puppy broker, which I’ve never forgotten,
“Puppies are like baked goods – the older they get, the staler they
are, and the less money you can charge for them”.
The North American pet market wants their puppies young, and in
the prime of their ‘cute puppy’ phase – generally, between 8 to 9
weeks of age. Here’s a breakdown of what it takes to get those
puppies to North America, before their ‘best before’ window expires.
Bunchers are the guys who visit the Eastern European breeders,
and round up the puppies. They’ll pick up entire litter lots, of the
various breeds that are in demand, load them up, and do the
paperwork that’s required to get them ready for shipping to North
America. Since there’s at least a week or two of ‘advance’ work to be
done before the puppies are ready to be shipped, the Bunchers are
usually picking these puppies up almost as soon as they are weaned
– that’s as early as four weeks.
This is Leah, at four weeks old. Her legs are wobbly, her teeth are
still erupting, and she startles rapidly. She’s barely out of her neonate
phase, and into her transitional one.
A four week old puppy is a fragile thing – it’s immune system is still
reliant on the antibodies it received from its mother, and it is
physically unable to regulate body temperature effectively and so
gets cold or hot very rapidly.
This is the most important phase in a puppy’s emotional
development, and it is when they most need the company of their
littermates and their mother.
Bunchers, of course, are not concerned with these niceties. Their
only goal is to get their goods to market, as quickly as possible. Once
rounded up, the puppies are transported (apparently sometimes on
the floors of vans) to a holding facility, where they stay until all the
necessary paperwork has been done that they need to be able to be
shipped.
Once this is ready, they’re packed into crates, and loaded onto
airplanes. Technically, it’s unacceptable to ship multiple puppies
together in one crate, but in reality it still happens all the time,
especially if the shipper on the European end either doesn’t know
about this regulation, or has been paid not to care. Sometimes, the
shippers aren’t too up to date on proper animal welfare, which
explains the crate which arrived in the USA shrink wrapped, and full
of suffocated puppies. A few dead puppies, however, are considered
‘acceptable loss’ – after all, the pups are bought for sometimes as
little as $50, but they can be re sold by the bunchers for a few
hundred – and there’s almost no limit what the brokers on the other
end can charge.
The pups who make it onto the plane face a grueling journey – with
layovers, a flight from Poland to Toronto is going to depart at 7:30 in
the evening, and arrive at 1:00 the following day (that’s a 23hr 5mn
trip). Since the puppies, however, are traveling as cargo, they usually
are required to have a four or five hour layover, to ensure they’re
loaded onto the connecting flight.
Think about it – that’s at least two to three hours in advance arrival, a
day and change in transit, and then another three or so hours being
processed on arrival. Alone, in a crate, with no food, no water, no
potty breaks, no companionship. For puppies that are, by now,
probably no more than five to six weeks old.
Staggering.
Sick puppy gets injection by the puppy broker who imported it
Sick puppy gets injection by the puppy broker who imported it
The pups arrive, are processed, and are picked up by the puppy
brokers. At this point, they have to be vetted, and treated for any
conditions they’ve acquired over the interval since they left the
Bunchers (parasites like coccidia and giardia, and viruses like parvo,
thrive in conditions of stress).
Veterinary treatment costs money, so a lot of the brokers choose a
sort of ‘do it yourself’ method, as we can see in this photo of a puppy
receiving ‘care’ at the hands of the Broker who imported it.
You can imagine how well that usually works out.
Once the surviving puppies have been dosed with antibiotics, fluids
and worming medicine, the Brokers prop them up against some
stuffed animals, take their photos, and add them to their websites, or
the numerous “puppy for sale” websites which have proliferated in
the last ten or so years. Some will be sold via on line sites like Kijiji,
and many will be portrayed as having been bred by the person
selling them. In many cases, buyers only find out where their puppies
really came from when (and if) they finally get a copy of their
registration papers.
That’s an awfully long trip, at an awfully young age, for puppies who
should be still at home playing with their litter mates. By comparison,
it makes the cross country trip from Missouri to a New York City pet
shop look like a comparative walk in the park, and yet people who
would never dream of buying a pet store puppy will purchase one
from a broker, without seeing the irony.
We need people to understand that there is just as much, if not more,
cruelty involved in the import puppy trade, as there is in the domestic
puppy mill business. All of the shiny on line photographs in the world
can’t justify the abuse these tiny little victims endure.
by frogdogz on February 25, 2010 in Daily Life, French Bulldog Stuff
with 5 Comments Tweet
I’ve written at length before about what a “Puppy Broker” is - think of
them as ‘electronic pet stores’, who obtain puppies from a breeder,
and then re sell them for a profit. Unlike pet stores, who at least admit
to not having bred the puppies they sell, many brokers will bend over
backwards to obscure the fact that they aren’t the actual breeders of
the puppies.
Brokers who do admit that their dogs are European imports like to
use a lot of buzz terms about just why they’re importing puppies for re
sale. They’ll talk about “superior health”, and “champion lines”, and
they like to toss around references to a better policed European
breeding system. What they never actually spell out for you is the
actual chain of events – how a puppy gets from a breeder in Europe
to a puppy broker in Toronto, or some other North American city.
This article caught my eye, because it fills in some of the blanks for
us:
From the Austrian Independent -
Styrian police discovered 47 puppies stashed in a Slovakian van
during a routine motorway traffic check on the A2 yesterday (Weds).
Cops said the animals were transported in carton boxes and on the
car’s floor.
The 31-year-old driver is facing animal cruelty charges. He
admitted he had been driving nonstop for hours and was on his way
to Spain.
A vet said the man had five King Charles Spaniels, one Jack
Russell Terrier, eight miniature pinscher, four Pomeranians, one
French Bulldog, four Chihuahuas, three wire-haired dachshunds, 20
Maltese and one Labrador. He said the youngest dogs were just five
weeks old.
The emphasis in bold is mine, because it plays such an important
part in explaining just why so many of the Eastern European import
dogs have temperament problems.
In the immortal words of a puppy broker, which I’ve never forgotten,
“Puppies are like baked goods – the older they get, the staler they
are, and the less money you can charge for them”.
The North American pet market wants their puppies young, and in
the prime of their ‘cute puppy’ phase – generally, between 8 to 9
weeks of age. Here’s a breakdown of what it takes to get those
puppies to North America, before their ‘best before’ window expires.
Bunchers are the guys who visit the Eastern European breeders,
and round up the puppies. They’ll pick up entire litter lots, of the
various breeds that are in demand, load them up, and do the
paperwork that’s required to get them ready for shipping to North
America. Since there’s at least a week or two of ‘advance’ work to be
done before the puppies are ready to be shipped, the Bunchers are
usually picking these puppies up almost as soon as they are weaned
– that’s as early as four weeks.
This is Leah, at four weeks old. Her legs are wobbly, her teeth are
still erupting, and she startles rapidly. She’s barely out of her neonate
phase, and into her transitional one.
A four week old puppy is a fragile thing – it’s immune system is still
reliant on the antibodies it received from its mother, and it is
physically unable to regulate body temperature effectively and so
gets cold or hot very rapidly.
This is the most important phase in a puppy’s emotional
development, and it is when they most need the company of their
littermates and their mother.
Bunchers, of course, are not concerned with these niceties. Their
only goal is to get their goods to market, as quickly as possible. Once
rounded up, the puppies are transported (apparently sometimes on
the floors of vans) to a holding facility, where they stay until all the
necessary paperwork has been done that they need to be able to be
shipped.
Once this is ready, they’re packed into crates, and loaded onto
airplanes. Technically, it’s unacceptable to ship multiple puppies
together in one crate, but in reality it still happens all the time,
especially if the shipper on the European end either doesn’t know
about this regulation, or has been paid not to care. Sometimes, the
shippers aren’t too up to date on proper animal welfare, which
explains the crate which arrived in the USA shrink wrapped, and full
of suffocated puppies. A few dead puppies, however, are considered
‘acceptable loss’ – after all, the pups are bought for sometimes as
little as $50, but they can be re sold by the bunchers for a few
hundred – and there’s almost no limit what the brokers on the other
end can charge.
The pups who make it onto the plane face a grueling journey – with
layovers, a flight from Poland to Toronto is going to depart at 7:30 in
the evening, and arrive at 1:00 the following day (that’s a 23hr 5mn
trip). Since the puppies, however, are traveling as cargo, they usually
are required to have a four or five hour layover, to ensure they’re
loaded onto the connecting flight.
Think about it – that’s at least two to three hours in advance arrival, a
day and change in transit, and then another three or so hours being
processed on arrival. Alone, in a crate, with no food, no water, no
potty breaks, no companionship. For puppies that are, by now,
probably no more than five to six weeks old.
Staggering.
Sick puppy gets injection by the puppy broker who imported it
Sick puppy gets injection by the puppy broker who imported it
The pups arrive, are processed, and are picked up by the puppy
brokers. At this point, they have to be vetted, and treated for any
conditions they’ve acquired over the interval since they left the
Bunchers (parasites like coccidia and giardia, and viruses like parvo,
thrive in conditions of stress).
Veterinary treatment costs money, so a lot of the brokers choose a
sort of ‘do it yourself’ method, as we can see in this photo of a puppy
receiving ‘care’ at the hands of the Broker who imported it.
You can imagine how well that usually works out.
Once the surviving puppies have been dosed with antibiotics, fluids
and worming medicine, the Brokers prop them up against some
stuffed animals, take their photos, and add them to their websites, or
the numerous “puppy for sale” websites which have proliferated in
the last ten or so years. Some will be sold via on line sites like Kijiji,
and many will be portrayed as having been bred by the person
selling them. In many cases, buyers only find out where their puppies
really came from when (and if) they finally get a copy of their
registration papers.
That’s an awfully long trip, at an awfully young age, for puppies who
should be still at home playing with their litter mates. By comparison,
it makes the cross country trip from Missouri to a New York City pet
shop look like a comparative walk in the park, and yet people who
would never dream of buying a pet store puppy will purchase one
from a broker, without seeing the irony.
We need people to understand that there is just as much, if not more,
cruelty involved in the import puppy trade, as there is in the domestic
puppy mill business. All of the shiny on line photographs in the world
can’t justify the abuse these tiny little victims endure.
Bulldog Scammers
Bulldog scammers try to sell you puppies from Nigeria, Canada, United States and other
countries. They charge as low as $200.00 to $2500.00 and want you to pay them through
Western Union etc.. and then you arrive at the airport but there is no puppy. They say
they are missionaries that can no longer take care of their dog. DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!
If you purchase a puppy in Canada you can contact the Canadian Kennel Club and see
if they are members in good standing the Canadian Kennel Club or you can ask for a
reference as well from somone that had their puppy shipped to them preferably in your
province..... BUYER BEWARE!!!!!
Bulldog scammers try to sell you puppies from Nigeria, Canada, United States and other
countries. They charge as low as $200.00 to $2500.00 and want you to pay them through
Western Union etc.. and then you arrive at the airport but there is no puppy. They say
they are missionaries that can no longer take care of their dog. DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!
If you purchase a puppy in Canada you can contact the Canadian Kennel Club and see
if they are members in good standing the Canadian Kennel Club or you can ask for a
reference as well from somone that had their puppy shipped to them preferably in your
province..... BUYER BEWARE!!!!!